(NSE:ASAL) shareholders have had their patience rewarded with a 25% share price jump in the last month. Unfortunately, the gains of the last month did little to right the losses of the last year with the stock still down 40% over that time.

Following the firm bounce in price, Automotive Stampings and Assemblies' price-to-earnings (or "P/E") ratio of 54.2x might make it look like a strong sell right now compared to the market in India, where around half of the companies have P/E ratios below 29x and even P/E's below 16x are quite common. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the highly elevated P/E.

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For example, consider that Automotive Stampings and Assemblies' financial performance has been poor lately as its earnings have been in decline. One possibility is that the P/E is high because investors think the company will still do enough to outperform the broader market in the near future. You'd really hope so, otherwise you're paying a pretty hefty price for no particular reason.

Check out our latest analysis for Automotive Stampings and Assemblies

Although there are no analyst estimates available for Automotive Stampings and Assemblies, take a look at this data-rich visualisation to see how the company stacks up on earnings, revenue and cash flow.

The only time you'd be truly comfortable seeing a P/E as steep as Automotive Stampings and Assemblies' is when the company's growth is on track to outshine the market decidedly.

If we review the last year of earnings, dishearteningly the company's profits fell to the tune of 17%. This means it has also seen a slide in earnings over the longer-term as EPS is down 68% in total over the last three years. Accordingly, shareholders would have felt downbeat about the medium-term rates of earnings growth.

Weighing that medium-term earnings trajectory against the broader market's one-year forecast for expansion of 23% shows it's an unpleasant look.

With this information, we find it concerning that Automotive Stampings and Assemblies is trading at a P/E higher than the market. It seems most investors are ignoring the recent poor growth rate and are hoping for a turnaround in the company's business prospects. There's a very good chance existing shareholders are setting themselves up for future disappointment if the P/E falls to levels more in line with the recent negative growth rates.

The strong share price surge has got Automotive Stampings and Assemblies' P/E rushing to great heights as well. Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-earnings ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

We've established that Automotive Stampings and Assemblies currently trades on a much higher than expected P/E since its recent earnings have been in decline over the medium-term. Right now we are increasingly uncomfortable with the high P/E as this earnings performance is highly unlikely to support such positive sentiment for long. Unless the recent medium-term conditions improve markedly, it's very challenging to accept these prices as being reasonable.

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